Alice Ever After
by Iellix
Summary: Love makes things unnecessarily complicated; acknowledging it changes everything. Sequel to 'Keeping Warm', AU ending for the series.
1. Chapter One

I've had this story languishing in my hard drive for months now—I started writing it as an alternate ending to the series and a sequel to 'Keeping Warm', but I've been unsure where to go with it. I'm still not 100% sure where the ending is gonna go, but the story demands to be shared.

This story starts immediately after the end of 'Keeping Warm'—you'll probably have to read that story to understand this one. The rating will likely go up to M, but for the time being it's a rather tame T rating.

Disclaimer: I do not own 'Alice' or any of the characters or themes therein. No money is being made from this story, at least not that I'll declare on my income tax.

o…o

Hatter is gone before she wakes up. She's alone, still naked but for her boots, wrapped in her coat and the wool blanket by the doused fire. For a few seconds upon waking up, still a little foggy and fuzzy from sleep and not quite lucid yet, she can't remember how she came to _be_ naked in the blanket. Then she feels the scrapes on her thighs from his stubble and the memory comes back all at once.

Alice sighs softly, stretching her arms over her head.

"Ah, JustAlice awakens!" Charlie's voice comes from somewhere off across the fire pit.

She holds her coat up snug to her chest, even though she knows the blanket more than covers her. Does Charlie know what happened? They didn't _think_ he'd woken up the night before but that doesn't mean he didn't.

"I have for you some toasted bread and jubjub eggs for breakfast," the old knight says cheerfully. "Your vassal—the Hatter—is gone to the city. Left at dawn. He told me to tell you not to worry."

From where the man is standing, he must be able to tell that she's not wearing anything under the heavy blanket but he either doesn't realize what it means or is far too chivalrous and pretends not to notice. Either way, he doesn't mention it and appears completely oblivious to her… activities… the previous night with Hatter.

"And your things are dry, my lady Alice," he says with a dramatic bow, gesturing grandly to the little pile of blue and red. "I shall leave you in peace, but do not stray. The Harbinger said to make certain you stay within the Kingdom. I shall return—the traps must be set for the bandersnatch!" And off he goes with a shovel over his shoulder, probably intent on digging another huge pit and looking ridiculously cheerful and singing and babbling, leaving her alone to dress in private.

For a few minutes, Alice doesn't move, in peace and quiet again and savouring the memories of last night with a giddy little smile on her face. Hatter's hands, his mouth—the sexy little purring noise he made when he made her squirm, the equally sexy moans whenever _she_ made _him_ squirm.

They never _did_ get around to the sex. She'd fallen asleep. She's going to have to fix that when he gets back.

_When_ he gets back. She refuses to think that he might not, even though deep in the back of her mind she knows it's a distinct possibility. She remembers Dodo's threat to him—he'll have every member of the Resistance hunting Hatter down. He tried to assure her that Dodo was just one arm of it, that the other Resistance members will be willing to help, especially if he can get word to Caterpillar. Whoever _Caterpillar_ is. She only hopes he's not smoking a hookah.

He _is_ going to be safe and he _is_ going to come back.

Normally, this would probably disgust her—she's gotten way too attached, way too fast. She thought her relationship with _Jack_ moved quickly in six weeks, but she's known Hatter for a few _days_ and already she might well be falling for him.

How sappy.

She trails her hands down her body, mimicking the path Hatter's took the night before. This is patently the wrong time and place to relive last night, but it's awfully tempting. Thinking about it makes the excitement burn in her abdomen, hot and fast like a roadside flare. Then the hand stops when she feels something on her stomach; she picks it up and brings it out from under the blanket to see what it is.

Long stalks of grass have been braided together and then twisted into a little heart shape.

She holds it in her palm and stares at it for several long moments. Hatter left it there for her to find so she'd know he was thinking of her. It shouldn't make her feel all teary because Alice isn't the kind of girl who cries, ever, at all, over anything. But it does. For some reason, it makes a little lump come up in her throat.

She finds her underwear and her bra and hops around as she gets dressed. Her clothes smell smoky, like the campfire. Her father's watch is still in her dress pocket. She tucks Hatter's little grass heart into the other pocket and tries to find something to occupy her time until he comes back.

The hours wear on. And on. And on.

There's only so much time she can pass talking to Charlie, and after he reveals to her what must be his deepest, darkest secret—that he is, in fact, not a knight at all but a squire who ran in fear and hid and survived the massacre because of that—he goes sullen and quiet and wanders off into the forest alone. He isn't singing.

She sits by the fire, her father's watch in one hand and Hatter's grass heart in the other, staring at them without really seeing either of them.

Her father _is_ here, he has to be—there's no other conceivable way for Jack to have this watch. Or else, he _was_ here, once. So where is he? What's become of him? Is he one of the sedated Oysters in the game rooms, putting out emotions for the Queen? Is he a prisoner, being kept in some dungeons somewhere? Jack has proven untrustworthy at best and at worst deliberately deceitful, so exactly how is she supposed to trust that he was telling the truth when he said 'he's here'?

Jack lied about everything, even his name, but the fact remains that Robert Hamilton was, at one point, in Wonderland and somehow lost his watch. How Jack came to have it remains a mystery. Maybe her father isn't even here at all and he just wants to use the watch and the spectre of her missing father as a bargaining chip against _her_ just as _she_ wants to use the Stone of Wonderland as a bargaining chip against the Queen. To manipulate her.

And maybe her father _is_ here, and Jack wants to use _that_ as his bait.

She doesn't _want_ to trust what Jack said, but she's looked for her father—and looked for _answers—_for too long to let this lead slide. At the very least, the answers she needs are in the Casino, even if Robert himself isn't. She can't _not_ give it a try, no matter how much she wants to strangle Jack to death the next time she sees him. Hatter will get the Resistance leader to help her and a condition of her turning the Stone over is that they will help her find her father.

Hatter…

She smiles ever so slightly as she runs her fingers over the twisted grass heart in her hand, but the smile quickly wavers and droops. She's getting _very_ attached to that man. It might have something to do with the fact that they very nearly had sex last night—that they did everything _but,_ that they _would_ have if she didn't fall asleep—but part of her thinks she might be falling in love. He's the least-likely candidate to earn her trust but he has.

She checks the sun's position but she doesn't know how to tell time that way. If the sun here rises in the east and sets in the west—which it may well not do, she really has no idea—then it might be early afternoon by now. Charlie said Hatter left at dawn. That's an awfully long time. Can it take that long to get back to the city and get a message passed along? To know if the Resistance is willing to help?

She tries not to get scared but she can't help it. If Hatter fails, or worse—oh god, Hatter, they said they'd have you killed if they found you!—then what's to become of her? Without Hatter she only has bonkers Charlie and as adept as he is at staying alive in the forest, he's not likely going to be any good to get her home. The Resistance want to kill her just as badly as they want to kill Hatter, and the Hearts… the Hearts will do even worse to her. She could be stuck here for a long time, maybe even _forever._

Charlie comes back, singing gleefully. He puts on a pot of some kind of stew and talks nonsense at her and interrupts her thoughts. When she gets up to go somewhere else so she can think, he stops her.

"JustAlice, the Harbinger told me to keep my eye on you—you cannot go into the forest alone, you'll get lost."

"I'll be all right, Charlie," she says. "I just need to think."

"You can't think here?" He asks.

No, she can't think here—she needs to keep her body occupied walking or _something_ so her mind will work. "I'll be fine," she says again, but Charlie isn't hearing of it and tells her to stay put and think sitting still.

And then he goes to his hammock and falls asleep almost immediately and she gets up and makes her way up the hill to a cliff that overlooks the ruins of the kingdom.

She's not sure how long she's there for. Her mind wanders into all the possible outcomes to her current situation, and few of them are good. What if the Resistance help her and they _still_ fail—her, the whole Resistance, Hatter, Charlie, _everyone—_and the Queen is unstoppable? What if the Resistance _won't_ help her? How will she survive here in this place, this freakish Wonderland? The mark on her arm betrays her as an Oyster—she can't hide it forever, can she?

Will she ever get home? The Resistance being willing to help is no automatic guarantee that she'll be able to get home. It's not a guarantee that they'll be able to get to the Looking Glass, when Hatter told her it was the most heavily-guarded place in Wonderland. How will she explain her absence to her mother—her mom is probably losing her mind with worry right now. It's not as if she can just turn up days later with a story about how Wonderland really exists; if she did _that_ she'd end up wearing a straight jacket in a padded cell.

Will Hatter be okay? What if Hatter was playing her? What if her shit judgment for men has reared its ugly head again and Hatter was just using her? What if he planned on going into the city and giving her up to the Resistance, or what if he just disappeared and never came back?

But no… that can't be it.

She hears footsteps in the dry grass coming up the hill and she breaks out of her reverie, turning to see who's coming. She isn't scared and doesn't adopt a defensive pose like she would normally do—it can only be one of two people coming and neither of them would hurt her.

She hears the voice before she can see who it is.

"It's good news," Hatter says. "The Resistance want to help. They're sending a special agent who'll take us to Caterpillar."

She turns and she smiles, a wave of relief washing over her. She wants to run over and leap up and hug him but her feet stay rooted to the spot. He's smiling, but he looks just as unsure of himself as she feels—like he's not sure where they stand with each other after what happened last night.

"Whew. That's… that's quite a steep hill."

She stares at him, right _through_ him almost, for a long time. "I was beginning to think you weren't coming back," she admits.

He raises his eyebrows. "You still don't trust me?"

"That's not it," she says. "You know that's not it. I was afraid…" she trails off, afraid of saying it.

"Hey, c'mon. Give me a _little _credit, yeah?" He says, coming to stand behind her, his hands on her shoulders and his cheek resting against her hair. She thinks she can feel him kiss her head and she leans back against him as she lets out a shaky breath. "I haven't survived this long without knowing a thing or two about saving my own butt."

Despite herself, she giggles. "It's a butt worth saving."

He laughs, too, and she turns around and wraps her arms around him, burying her face against his chest. He's reassuringly solid. After a second's hesitation, he wraps his arms around her, strokes her back, and kisses her forehead.

"S'all right, you know," he says.

"I know. It's just a lot to deal with."

He kisses the top of her head and lets his lips linger in her hair.

"How soon 'til the agent gets here?" She asks.

"Those guys can move pretty fast when they have to—could be any time." Then he leans back so he can fix her with a knee-weakening crooked smile that goes all the way up to his eyes, all mischief and dirty little promises. "Why, did you have… _plans?"_

The emphasis he puts on the word coupled with the look he gives her tells her _exactly_ what he means by that.

"I might have," she says, giving him a grin of her own. The thought of immediately jumping on Hatter and savaging him had crossed her mind, but she can't be sure they'll have the time.

"Dirty thoughts, my Alice?"

Instead of answering, she stands taller and kisses him. She's wanted to do that since he climbed the hill. She pulls him close and flush against her, one hand in his hair and the other around his back under his jacket with a fistful of his shirt. He holds her tight, just as desperate for reassurance as she is and both of them relieved and glad that the other doesn't regret the previous night.

They break the kiss and stand in silence, still holding onto each other.

She notices him looking out at the city below them, the ruins of what's left of a once-great kingdom, and she has a feeling she knows what she's thinking.

"You're going to join them, aren't you—the Resistance? Fight alongside them?"

"I have to try," he says. "As Dodo said, I've been living my life playing both sides of the court. Was the only way I could stay alive. I let the Hearts think I was working for them, meanwhile I fed their enemies. Those days are _over."_ He steps away from her and goes to the edge of the cliff, looking down and then back at her. "Seeing this great city, and what's become of it… to be honest, it's a wakeup call."

She's not sure how she feels about that, Hatter fighting for the Resistance, even though she knows she has no right to be apprehensive because Hatter is a big boy and can do whatever he likes. His life up until now has been all danger, constantly looking over his shoulder, and he's been wary enough—with _reason_ to be—to wear a bulletproof vest. Joining the Resistance won't make his life any more dangerous than it's already been, but the idea of him being a soldier amongst those trying to overthrow the Queen scares her. He could be hurt or killed. Or worse.

But he wants to do this. He feels like it's worth fighting for, she realizes—for the first time in his life he's found something worth fighting for. Hope. Not just survival, getting from one day to another, but real _hope._ And she can't stop him from fighting for something just because she cares for him and she's afraid he'll get hurt.

He turns back around and starts to head down the hill. He holds out a hand to her.

"C'mon," he says. "Charlie's cooking something or other in a big stew pot. No sense in us goin' hungry while we wait for the agent."

Her stomach rumbles—she hasn't realized she's hungry until now—and she takes his hand so they can go back to the camp. Before he starts walking, he takes her hand to his lips and ever so softly brushes her fingers with a kiss. She feels herself blush.

"Did you find what I left you this morning?" He asks as he lets her pass him.

Alice nods.

"Good."

They need to concentrate on their footing down the hill—it's all big huge rocks and knobbly sticking-up tree roots and neither of them wants to faceplant in the dirt right now. But he must notice something unusual about her silence because once they're back on level ground he asks her what's wrong.

Her normal M.O. for that kind of question is to lie through her teeth, but she doesn't want to lie. Not to Hatter. Not about this. It scares her too much and she needs to know if he's thought about it, too, and what—if anything—can be done.

"What'll I do," she whispers, "if I get stuck here?"

They both stop and he comes to stand in front of her, holding her gently by the shoulders. His eyes are soft and his voice is low and he's all sincerity when he answers her.

"Then I'll make sure you're okay."

There's no hesitation. He's serious, and for the first time in her life Alice believes what a man tells her.

He leans in and kisses her cheek. "I think your luck's finally changing."

She cranes her neck and tilts her head to kiss him and their lips have _just barely_ touched when a familiar voice interrupts them.

"That's right, it is."

And there's Jack, immaculate in a suit and tie and holding a sword, and Hatter pushes her behind him and stands between them, prepared to put himself in potential harm's way to keep her safe even though by now he knows she can fight just as hard as anyone.

"Hello, Alice," he says, his voice oily and smooth and so cocksure she wants to slap him. She used to think his accent was sexy, but now it just sounds too polished, a carefully-put-together mask just like everything else about him. "Am I interrupting anything?"

Yes—yes he is! But more than being frustrated at having a kiss with Hatter interrupted, her mind starts reeling because _Jack is here_ and she doesn't know how he got here and whether or not he's brought the entire Heart's Casino with him in order to drag her to the Memory Room and torture her into giving up the ring. Her mind goes in a hundred different directions and tries to figure out a hundred different ways out of this situation and none of them are panning out.

Charlie is babbling in the background, hog-tied in his long johns.

"I know what you're thinking—how could he sneak up on me, and in my own manor of all places?"

They ignore him.

Hatter sees the sword in the Prince's hand and he grabs the nearest thing he can find that could be used as a weapon: a branch. It's a noble gesture, in its own right, because he wants to protect her, but a dead stick against a sword is a decidedly one-sided fight

"You think you can fight me with that?" Jack asks, smirking.

"I'm not an old man," he counters.

"Oi!" Charlie yells from his position on the ground.

"What, do you think I'm not well-trained in the art of swordplay?" The Prince asks. He's using that condescending 'poor-little-peasant' tone he sometimes used on her, she realizes, when she found herself hopelessly outclassed by him in New York. What a jerk.

"Just 'cos I'm not in a suit doesn't mean I don't know the rules of a duel," Hatter growls back. "You think too high of yourself, Jack Heart."

Neither of them is moving, content with throwing insults back and forth at one another, but the last thing they need right now is bloodshed. They're in enough trouble with the Hearts as it is, and they don't need to make it worse by killing the Prince, no matter how much she wants to see him suffer. They stare each other down like dogs about to fight and Alice can't take this anymore.

"Hey, look!" She snaps, stomping down the hill to come stand between them, her arms outstretched, prepared to hold them both back from each other with her bare hands if it should come to that—but it probably won't. "The two of you stop your stupid little dick-waving competition _right now!"_ She commands.

Both of them break their staring competition to look at her. Jack's expression is confused; Hatter's is amused.

"No one is fighting anyone here unless it's me—and I'm a black belt, remember?"

"This is about honour, Alice," Jack says.

Just what the _hell_ is he playing at? It's not cute, it's not sweet, it's just downright infuriating.

"Oh for crying out fucking loud!" She yells in exasperation. "Give me those!" She grabs Jack's hand and pries the sword from his grip and snatches the branch away from Hatter and throws them off somewhere behind her.

Jack gives a smirk again and this time it's directed at Hatter; he seems to think she's taken their penis-allegories away to protect _him_ from _Hatter._ The urge to ball-kick someone has never been so strong.

"Who's your friend, Alice?"

"Why d'you care?" She spits back.

Clearly this isn't the answer he's expecting and his façade falters for a second before he puts that cocky look back on his face again.

"You two looked pretty _friendly_ there."

Anger boils up in her stomach, fizzles over her skin like an uncomfortable itchy sweater. She takes a step forward, her fists clenched; behind her, Hatter comes forward to grab her hand and stop her, because he knows she wants to go over there and beat Jack's too-perfect face into asymmetry. The Prince's eyes flicker to their joined hands before he goes back to eyeing her suspiciously.

"It's none of your fucking _business!"_ She yells. "Why—you jealous, Jack?"

"A little."

She snorts and she doesn't care how unsexy that sounds. "Fuck you," she says flatly. "Just… _fuck. You!"_ She can't come up with any better words than that because her brain isn't working properly. "You're engaged. To a Duchess. And you _lied_ to me about it. You've got no right to be jealous or play victim."

"You know that was just an act," he says smoothly.

"No," she hisses. "No, I don't."

He stares at them a second longer, clearly curious, but he strides away rather than think about it.

"Come, I've brought you a horse. Let's get out of here."

"Hey! She's not going anywhere with you!" Hatter calls, following him, by now itching for a fight; his right hand is twitching, clenching and unclenching.

"You know she can't stay here."

"She's not going anywhere with you!"

"Will the two of you just _shut up?"_ She hisses. "And stop talking about me like I can't make any decisions for myself."

She grabs Hatter's wrist to stop him walking after Jack.

"I need to know about my dad," she says softly. The Prince's back is turned so she reaches up to rest her hand on Hatter's cheek; he meets her eyes questioningly at first, and then he nods, understanding. She doesn't _want_ to trust Jack but Jack has to know _something_ about her father and she _has_ to know what happened.

He puts his hand over hers, turns his head to the side, and presses a kiss to her palm. She closes her eyes and lets herself savour it for a few seconds before she turns her attention back to Jack, but she's still got Hatter by the wrist and she doesn't want to let go.

"Is he here?" She asks—demands.

"Yes. And if you'll come with me, I'll take you to him."

And at that she falters. She shouldn't trust him and she doesn't _want_ to trust him, but the cards are stacked in his favour simply because _he had her father's watch._ Robert never took that watch off, ever; if Jack had it, then that meant her father was in Wonderland.

Her voice comes soft and small and childlike.

"Really?"

Hatter clenches her hand tight, narrows his eyes, shakes his head—he's skeptical. He's not buying this.

Jack explains, tells them he's a Resistance insider, and against her will Alice hangs on his words. Her father is _here_ and he's _alive_ after all this time and she would give anything to see him again—absolutely anything.

But Hatter isn't easily convinced.

"He's _lying,_ Alice! He just wants the ring!" He says. He's determined to stop her from going with him, though whether it's out of jealousy or genuine concern for her or a mix of both she's not sure.

Jack and Hatter argue again and Alice puts her head in her hands, trying to tune them out. This is a lot to process and again they're talking about her like she isn't there or can't answer for herself.

She doesn't _want_ to trust Jack because she knows she can't. Hatter is trustworthy, but can't bring her to her father. She _needs_ answers. She's waited half her life for answers and now they're so close she can taste them, but in order to get them she's going to have to, if not _trust_ Jack, then certainly _believe_ what he says.

It's a rock and a hard place.

They're still arguing and this time it looks like they might actually fight.

"Both of you stop!" She commands again. "I'm not going anywhere with _anyone_ until I figure this out."

"Alice we have to go, quickly," Jack says. "Your friend can't come with us, I'm sorry—the Resistance was very clear, you come on their terms. You want to see your father again, don't you?"

"Yes, of course…"

"Then we must go."

"But Hatter's…" she trails off—there are hundreds of different ways she can end that sentence and she's not sure which to use. "He stood by me. He's coming with us."

"Who are you going to trust?" Jack asks, the words heavy in the air around them. He straightens up and lifts his chin. "A Resistance insider and future King, who has already scheduled your return trip through the Looking Glass—a man who cares for you more than anyone else in the world… or this man?" He nods disdainfully to Hatter.

Now that she can see Jack for what he truly is, she wonders what the hell she ever saw in him—he might be a Resistance insider and taking a bigger risk than anyone else in the Resistance in helping them, but he's far from the wonderful man she once thought he was. He's using her, plain and simple. For some reason, because he needs or wants something, he's using her.

"You—how did—that's not—I'm—what—" the words come haltingly and she's unable to string together a coherent sentence as rage burns in the pit of her stomach like a bad case of acid indigestion. Her hands shake and her fingernails bite into her palms as she clenches her fists at her sides, trying to keep from jumping over and beating him bloody on the ground.

Off to her side, Hatter is clenching his jaw, the muscles in his face twitching as his teeth grind together. He's just as angry, just as enraged.

"Okay, look, _Princess,"_ she explodes at Jack. "You've got an awful lot of nerve! My god, you're just… just so…" she can't finish the sentence. She fists her hands in her hair and then takes a slow, deep breath. "All right. _You—"_ she points at Jack, "—stay here." Then she thinks the better of that and changes her orders. "No, on second thought—untie Charlie!"

The man looks utterly shocked to have been spoken to like that, especially by her, but after he recovers from that shock he goes over to the knight to carry out his orders.

"You, come with me," she says to Hatter, grabbing his hand and marching off into the woods until they're a reasonable distance from Jack and hopefully out of earshot.

When she turns, she expects to see him giving her that 'oh-Alice-what-have-you-done' look he's perfected over the last few days, but instead he's got a hugely amused grin on his face.

"Y'know, Alice," he says. "If I didn't know for certain you _didn't,_ I'd think you had a huge set of balls on you."

His joke breaks up the tension that's been steadily knotting in her chest and gut and she leans against him, laughing softly.

"Oh, god, this is turning into a clusterfuck," she says.

"I'm gonna guess that's not as good as it sounds."

He hugs her and strokes her hair, and she fastens her arms around his waist under his coat; there they stay until their breathing evens out and their collective urge to kill Jack and make it look like an accident subsides.

"I have to know what happened to my dad," she says finally.

"I know. I just don't trust him."

"Me neither."

"So what are you going to do?"

"I have to go with him."

He draws back sharply, pushing her back by the shoulders and furrowing his brows at her.

"You can't be serious."

"I wish I wasn't, but… I _have_ to know."

"For all you know he's lying!"

"I know. For all I know it's another trap. He already said he wants the ring—whether he really wants it for the Resistance or whether he wants it for his mother, I dunno. But one thing's for sure—my dad _was_ here, once before." She pulls out the watch and holds it between them. "This… he had to have left this here. My dad was in Wonderland and I want to know what happened. You have to understand—I've spent most of my life looking for the answers. Now I might finally get them."

"Or you might end up on the Queen's chopping block!"

He takes his hat off and turns away from her, shaking his head and running his free hand through his hair, muttering and shifting.

"I can't stop you, and I can't go with you. It all sounds fishy—they want you to come _alone_ and they sent the _Prince_ to come get you? Sends up warning flags, if I'm honest."

"I know, it sends up warning flags for me, too. But he has a point. There aren't any Suits here, no backup, and he has to have been told how to get here by someone who knew."

"Sounds to me like you've made up your mind."

"Call it resignation," she says.

He sets his hat back on his head and turns back to her. She expects him to give her some lecture about not trusting Jack, or scold her for being so impetuous because between the two of them he's far more level-headed than she is. Instead he grabs her by the shoulders and wraps his arms around her, hugging her fiercely like he never wants to let go. When she hugs him back, clutching him just as tight, he releases a shaky breath against her ear.

"Please be careful," he whispers.

Her eyes get suddenly teary and she rubs against his shoulder.

"You know me—I'm always careful," she jokes. But he isn't in the mood for joking anymore and neither is she.

There's a lot of shuffling coming from the other direction—Jack's untied Charlie and they must be waiting for them to come back. Alice moves to step away from Hatter but he holds her in place. When she looks up at him his mouth meets hers, soft and gentle and warm. He has one hand up caressing the back of her neck and the other on the small of her back. Their bodies are flush—hips to hips and chest to chest—and neither of them wants to be the first to break the kiss or to step back.

Eventually they have to.

He doesn't follow her back to Jack and Charlie. Instead he hangs behind and watches her go.

"Alice," he says her name to get her to turn around. He looks like he wants to say something, something important, but at the last second he's changed his mind and goes with, "If he gets fresh, stab him in the groin."

She has a sneaking suspicion she knows what he wanted to say, and she thinks she feels the same thing for him. It's too fast, or it _would_ be too fast if things were normal for her right now and things are anything _but_ normal. She should say it—one thing her father's disappearance has taught her, it's that things left unsaid are always far more painful than those that _are_ said.

But she doesn't.

"I'll come back," she says instead.

She goes with Jack, but a part of her stays up there in the forest with Hatter.


	2. Chapter Two

Sorry for taking a while with this update. I'm working again and don't have much internet access unless I take my laptop back home or to a coffee shop. C'est ma vie, I guess—this week I'm staying at a different house where I do have internet access, so I hope I'll have more time to write and get updates published. (My life is so glamorous.)

I do a rather significant time-jump here. I apologize for that, as well. As different as things are in this alternate-ending-universe, I'm pretty sure Hatter would still follow Alice and try to take her back outside the Hospital of Dreams, and things would progress pretty well the same as it did in the series.

o…o

She goes with Jack, even though she's pretty sure she doesn't trust him anymore and even though she desperately wants to stay with Hatter. But a bigger part of her wants to find answers, find her father, because she's spent too much of her life wondering. There were too many unanswered questions, and she is too close to some kind of answer—and by now any answer, even an unhappy answer, is better than nothing—to turn back.

It's a rock and a hard place. With Hatter she feels safe but she won't have answers; with Jack she's with someone she knows she can't trust but who can show her what happened to her father.

She's made her decision and she has to live with that as they ride away from the forest and into the open grasses and along the river.

The trek is silent, and the silence is tense. The only sounds are the creaking of saddle leather and the rustling of horse's hooves in the grass. For a little while Jack tries to talk to her, reassure her, tell her he'll have her home by tonight and she'll go through the Looking Glass and go right back to when and where she left, like none of this had ever happened; he talks about his work with the Resistance, albeit not in explicit detail, and tells her it's all a part of the plan to overthrow the Queen and please, please believe him. But as she doesn't answer, his attempts at conversation dwindle and then stop. She doesn't feel like talking and she knows Jack doesn't feel like listening.

Alice isn't sure what, exactly, he expected of her—did he expect her to fall gratefully into his arms like a cheesy romantic movie, after all the lies he told her, knowing he was engaged? Covertly passing her a watch didn't make up for all the lies he told her. No risks he took by being in the Resistance would make up for the fact that he was using her to trigger a coup, putting her in danger by passing that ring to her. The Suits found _him_ in her world—it isn't a stretch to think they could have found _her,_ too, the unwilling mule holding the Stone of Wonderland.

So she's too angry with him to feel like talking to pass some of the time on horseback. Instead she thinks about Hatter, and keeps one hand in her dress pocket on the little grass heart he made for her. She's falling in love with the man. Against all her better judgment and against all of her deeply-ingrained apprehensiveness, she's started falling for him. Maybe it really is just adrenaline and exhaustion making her do things she wouldn't normally do, but she's not so sure. One way or another, she told him she'd come back—she's determined to keep that promise.

The silence remains, heavy and uncomfortable, for hours until Jack asks over his shoulder if she could use a break and she says sure.

They dismount by the stream and Alice keeps several arm's lengths away from Jack as they crouch to splash water on their faces. She watches him out of the corner of her eye, cautious and wary. He won't look at her.

"Who's the Duchess?" She asks—she blurts it out, really, because she hasn't intended on asking him any questions or making any attempt at starting conversation with him. But she _does_ want to know what his game is, even though she doesn't want to be a player in it anymore.

He wets his hand and rubs it on the back of his neck before he answers. "My mother's creature," he says. She's not sure how she feels about another woman, no matter how arrogant, being referred to as a 'creature' but she keeps her mouth closed. "I have no feelings for her, nor she for me."

Somehow she doubts that.

"You must believe me, Alice, I care for you very deeply."

"Uh-huh," she says.

"You don't trust me?"

"No, I don't."

"I can't blame you."

She splashes water on her face again. Being out in the blazing midday sun is going to give her sunburn and make all of her freckles come out, she thinks absently, and she looks awful all freckled and pink. It occurs to her what a weird thing it is to think, given her situation. She could die and she could be walking into a trap and she might finally see her dad again and Hatter could be in trouble and she's thinking about her freckles.

"What about the Hatter?" Jack asks.

"What about him?"

"What is he to you?"

She doesn't answer right away.

"You expect me to be honest with you when you lied to me?"

"I didn't lie. I do love you."

"Bull."

"Who is he? What is he to you?"

What's Hatter to her? He's her protector. He's someone who's helped her even though she hasn't always wanted his help and even though she's been reckless and impulsive. He's stuck by her. He's something more than the _friend_ Jack had called him.

"I told you before and I'll tell you again—it's none of your business."

She doesn't want to share what she feels for Hatter, especially not with Jack.

They take their horses and ride on and the uncomfortable, tense silence settles back over them. She passes the trek staring blankly at the horse's butt in front of her and thinking of Hatter and remembering last night.

It's all that keeps her sane.

o…o

She's scared stupid, her heart pounding and her thoughts racing and her skin clammy with sweat as she runs through the Casino and dives in through a set of double-doors. She doesn't know where they lead—it could be anywhere, right into the Suit's lounge for all she knows—but they lead to a game-room. The only people who notice her come in are the dealers and dancers; the Oysters, the _people,_ are all sedated and mindless and wouldn't notice if someone landed a helicopter in here.

She pulls up a bollard and blocks the door so the Suits outside can't come in. Her thoughts run a million miles a minute—what is she going to do, how is she going to help? Her dad is here somewhere, too, but he's not really her dad. Should it come down to it, could she face him, the Carpenter? He looks and talks just like Dad but he's not her father.

The Queen has the Stone now, and more people, more innocent people with lives and friends and loved ones, will be snatched up out of their lives and brought here to be milked dry and there's _nothing she can do to stop it._

She's just one girl all alone. Charlie is gone and Hatter—he's probably dead. That thought stings, and stings deep. He tried to save her, swooped in on a horse and was caught with her. They took him away. The Queen won't have been a forgiving character and she knows he's been tortured and if he isn't dead already then he soon will be. All because he tried to help her.

She would regret that she didn't tell him in the forest what she felt for him, but she doesn't have the luxury of that kind of time. Not right now.

She goes for the stage and the Suits in the room come from their posts to point their guns at her. She raises her hands, unarmed, her heart pounding.

And then there's that whistle. That one little sound sets her already-racing heart to beating frantically. He's here? He's _here!_

The whistle distracts the Suit and Hatter takes advantage of it—as he must have done as a reliable tactic for years—and punches him. _Hard._ He drops like a stone. The second Suit distracted, his gun lowered, she jumps down and grabs his wrists to keep him from pointing that gun at Hatter. He decks him, too, with that devastating right fist; he makes sure the Suits are down and he takes their guns away before he stands up and faces her.

Alice gasps; Hatter is a mess. He has a black eye, his face is cut, there are little trickles of blood down his face and neck. There are burn marks on his shirt—what happened there, and who did it?—and his hair is caked with blood and sweat. But good god, he's _alive—_by some miracle he's not dead and he's alive and well and standing right here in front of her punching out Suits, so as far as she's concerned he's never looked better.

He notices her looking agape at him and he's quick to reassure her, "Don't worry, it's just some cuts and bruises, yeah?"

He's _alive_ and he's _okay_ and he's waving off the fact that he's had the shit kicked out of him. He _looks_ real and _sounds_ real and _smells_ real. She flings her arms around him and hugs him just to be reasonably assured that he's not some hallucination caused by an overload of adrenaline.

"I thought you were dead," she breathes. He _feels_ real, too.

He holds her tight, releasing a breath against her neck and shoulder. His hands are shaking; the rest of him is all tense but he relaxes just a hair when she hugs him.

"Oh, that feels good…"

For a little while, a short little wonderful moment, the world slows down and the Casino is a distant thought instead of a very real threat and presence around them.

He stands up taller and pushes her back by her shoulders; she's confused until he speaks again.

"We should save that until we're safe," he says.

"No," she replies. "Screw waiting. I don't know if we ever _will_ be safe and I don't wanna wait."

'Screw waiting' indeed—however much time she had left, she was determined not to let it go to waste.

Before he answers she grasps his face between her hands and pulls him down. She kisses him. The kiss is frantic, desperate, trying to communicate a hundred different thoughts all at once to him through that kiss. His lips are dry and she can smell the familiar salty tang of blood from his cuts but as he kisses her back—warmly, teasing her lips with his lips and his tongue—she just doesn't care.

She hopes he can tell what she means in that kiss.

And just for a second, the world around them stops.


	3. Chapter Three

The scene in the Looking Glass chamber at the end of the series was another scene that I desperately wanted to rewrite for my own personal and selfish amusement—I mean for the character-development. Also, that scene desperately called for a snog. We're having some serious thunderstorms here, especially for this coming weekend, and the power (and internet) keep going all wonky on me, so I'm not sure when I'll get to update next.

o…o

The crowd in the open field next to the wreckage of the Casino is huge—there are Oysters and Casino employees, Suits, scientists. The dancers in their slinky dresses are shivering and newly-awakened Oysters are mostly dancing from one foot to the other, shoeless on the ground. Everyone shares the same expression of shocked bewilderment at what's just happened.

The Queen is taken by her once-loyal Suits and put in handcuffs; no one in Wonderland or anywhere else would blame Jack if he were to have her executed right on the spot _right now,_ but Jack isn't like that. For all his flaws, for all that he hurt her by using her so shamelessly, for all that he walks in on kisses and behaves snobbishly, he's basically a good person and he cares about his kingdom and he cares about justice. He says his mother will be granted a fair trial by jury just like anyone else would get.

The crowd mills amongst itself while Jack tries to arrange transport across the lake to the city and to the Looking Glass chamber, where everything will be sorted out. The Oysters—people—look dazed, huddling together in barefooted groups, and are eyeing everyone around them suspiciously. The Casino dancers seem suddenly aware of their silly dresses and plumed headgear and huddle together. The Suits break off into groups—Spades, Diamonds, Clubs, Hearts—and talk amongst themselves. Only the one Club, the Ten, is away from his fellow Clubs and is talking quickly and quietly with Jack.

No one is talking much, or yelling, or crying—Alice isn't sure if this is a surprise or not. Maybe everyone is in shock, too shocked to really be emotional about what's just happened. Everything around her is in chaos—it's a sort of slow, quiet chaos, but chaos nonetheless.

Quite suddenly, she realizes she's exhausted. The last few days of travel and excitement and running and all the madness dumped on her head since the second she stepped through the Looking Glass catch up with her all at once and slam into her like she's just been hit by a car. Her knees start to shake and her legs feel unsteady and watery under her.

She finds a fat fallen log and crumples down onto it, limp and heavy as a sandbag. She puts her head between her knees and takes a lot of slow, deep breaths to stave off the sudden wave of nausea; she can feel her hands trembling when she threads them through her hair and holds her head, like she's afraid it'll fall off if she doesn't keep her hands on it.

She feels overwhelmed—there's so much _feeling_ in her all vying for her attention, hundreds of different kind of emotion and passion looking for an exit. She's _relieved_ that it's all over. She's _happy_ the Queen didn't win and everything will be okay. She's _really glad_ that Hatter's all right. She's _ecstatic_ that she found her father and _devastated_ to have lost him again.

There's so much to feel and she can't even begin to think of where to start so instead she feels nothing at all—only numb.

Running through her mind on repeat is one question, over and over again: _'Now what?'_

All right, so they've stopped the Queen and stripped her of her power. Great. But there was a whole wide Wonderland out there that needed to be dealt with, and people who needed to be sent home. What were they going to do about the people who'd been here for years? And what about Wonderland—certainly the whole place needed to be fixed up, and there are probably going to be people still loyal to the Queen who'll want to return her to power, and people addicted to Oyster Tea. Jack can make the stuff illegal, but he can't make it unpopular.

And what about me, she thinks, like it's an afterthought. What's _she_ supposed to do now?

Is she just supposed to pick up and go home, like none of this ever happened? Should she stay here and make sure the rest of the people get safely home? She helped knock down the current government, so does that mean she's under some obligation to help lay the foundations of a new one? And how is she supposed to do that, anyway? She knows nothing about running a government. She only passed her tenth-grade Government class because she copied off the guy in front of her on the final.

And what about Hatter—what about _her_ and Hatter? Are they supposed to pretend nothing happened between them? Certainly long-distance relationships never work out in the long run, and Hatter being from Wonderland and Alice being in New York with only the Looking Glass to connect them is about as long-distance as a relationship can get unless she wants to start dating aliens from Jupiter. She can't very well go home and leave him and never see him again, but she can't stay in Wonderland indefinitely, either. Jumping back and forth between the two worlds is just as impossible.

Her head hurts. Badly.

She hears the crackle of old wood as someone comes to sit next to her; a hand gently detangles one of hers from her hair and strokes the back of her hand soothingly with a thumb.

"Hatter," she croaks his name.

He looks like she feels—exhausted, spent, in shock.

"I thought—I thought you might need this," he says, offering her a canteen. She takes it and sloshes the contents around and cautiously gives the mouth a sniff. Hatter wouldn't deliberately give her something she shouldn't have, but it doesn't pay to take chances. It smells like aluminium and stale water. "It's just water," he reassures her.

Her mouth and her throat are dry and she downs most of the water quickly. "Thanks."

He must notice her clutching the canteen so hard her knuckles turn white so her hands don't shake. He strokes her shoulder and asks, "All right, yeah?"

She shakes her head. "Not really, no, but I'll cope."

When she goes to hand him the canteen she sees his hands are shaking, too, and their fumbling hands miss it and it falls to the ground. Instead of reaching down to get it, he takes one of her hands in both of his, holding it firm and gentle in his still-shaking hands like he has to be _touching_ her or else she'll disappear in a puff of smoke. Alice takes her free hand and presses it against the side of his face on several days worth of stubble; he leans into it and his eyes drift closed.

She leans in and gives him a little peck on the lips—to reassure him and to reassure _herself_ that they're both okay—but that's not enough for him. He folds her into a tight hug and practically pulls her into his lap and kisses her until they're both breathless. He teases her mouth with his, traces her lower lip with his tongue until she parts her lips and lets him in. He cups the back of her neck with one hand and keeps the other snug around her back to keep her in place against him. She loops her arms around his neck and responds eagerly and fervently.

When they part, just a fraction of an inch, she realizes his cheeks are wet and so are hers. This is all so much, _too _much.

"I'm just glad you're okay," he says. "My god, Alice, I thought you were dead. You could've been killed."

"So could you. But we weren't. That's all that matters."

Except she doesn't believe her own words any more than Hatter believes them and the dam breaks and the tears come and don't stop. He holds her and she holds him and they shiver and sob, overwhelmed. But at least they're overwhelmed _together,_ not all alone, and there's a great deal of comfort in that.

o…o

With the help of Ten and the rest of the Clubs, Jack sorts the crowd out—into groups of Oysters and Suits and scientists—and loads them onto Scarabs and the whole confusing assortment is sent into the city and to the Looking Glass chamber, which is really the Heart's city palace. It was probably very grand, in its day, but now it's little more than a warehouse for people and technicians and scientists. But there there's plenty of room and no one is out in the elements and from there things can begin to get into some semblance of order.

From the Scarabs, the people are further sorted. Anyone with any medical knowledge is corralled in addition to the medics who worked in the Casino and the doctors who live in the city palace, and everyone is given a good going-over. There are people with broken bones and sprained ankles from fleeing the Casino, people with lacerations from the flying debris, people with bullet wounds; the Oysters, the _people,_ are mostly all right but they're all dehydrated and hungry and their feet are cut from running barefoot.

Everyone is fed and given something to drink and mostly told to 'sit tight' and wait. The first priority is to take all of the people snatched through the Looking Glass and send them back to when and where they came from, which is an arduous task and the Glass has to be calibrated manually for everyone and there must be hundreds of people. Many of the scientists and technicians are loyalists to the Queen and those who aren't fear prosecution, because 'I was only following orders' probably isn't any more a defense here than it is anywhere else, and have since fled, leaving just a handful of people behind who know how to work the Looking Glass.

Hatter's been taken away by a doctor to have those nasty burns and his 'cuts and bruises' looked at; Alice has been, too, and she's given a clean bill of health and something to eat. It's just a little bread and cheese and some water, but with something in her belly she feels far less exhausted and _much_ better. She goes off in search of Hatter but what with the mass of _people_ all over the place, she can't find him anywhere. So instead she tells herself they'll run into each other eventually and tries to offer help consoling the frantic people.

She's helping to calm down a terrified young woman—a girl, really, because she can't be any more than about eighteen or so—who speaks Spanish and hasn't had any idea what's been going on. Alice speaks it well enough to communicate and she talks carefully, explains things as best as she can, and the girl seems to get that the people here are trying to help send her home. Like everyone else, she looks relieved.

Jack appears at her elbow, smiling softly.

"You know, I always liked how it sounded when you spoke Spanish," he remarks.

She's not sure what kind of way _that_ is to begin a conversation so she doesn't respond to it and simply says, "Hello, Jack. Your Highness."

"Majesty," he corrects. "I suppose I'd be 'Majesty' now that my mother is no long Queen."

"Oh." She thinks she should probably curtsy or something, but she doesn't know how and she doesn't trust her knees to un-bend if she bends them. She keeps her hands knotted firmly behind her back, uneasy and unsure how to act around him. She's never been any good when it came to encounters with exes after the relationship ended—and she's _definitely_ not sure how to act around Jack, considering their entire relationship was just an act. No matter how much he denies it and no matter how much he tells her he cares for her, she can't believe him.

"I appreciate everything you're doing here," he says. "You're making our jobs easier this way."

"Thanks."

He's changed clothes, she notes. He's wearing a red-and-black suit and his hair is perfectly combed—not a single cowlick or a hair out of place. It's a funny thing to do when there's so much to be done all over the place, but appearances have always been important to Jack.

"The technicians are calibrating the glass as we speak," he goes on. "I thought you might have the honour of being the first to go home."

"Oh," she says again. There's no emotion in that word, nothing at all. She's spent the last several days _desperately_ wanting to go home, thinking of little else but going back through the Looking Glass and going back to New York and leaving Wonderland behind. But now that it's imminent, something inside her is apprehensive and she falters.

"Are you all right?" He asks.

"Where's Hatter?" She blurts out.

"I don't know."

"I have to go look for him—"

"Alice, we have to start sending people back."

"So send 'em back," she says bluntly. "I'll go after I find Hatter."

"I thought you wanted to go home."

She pauses. "How does the mirror work? Have I been gone for four days in real time, too?"

He shakes his head. "No. The Looking Glass will put you back to approximately the same time you left—that's how it works. These people—" he waves an arm at the shoeless crowd around them, "—will all go right back to where and when they were taken. They're free to think this is all a dream should they choose."

"Okay. So I'll go back to when I left no matter when I go back?"

"Well, yes—"

She cuts him off. "So there's no problem. I'll go find Hatter and you can send me back when I'm done. In the meantime, let these poor people go home!"

Jack looks down at her—down his _nose_ at her, she realizes; what, exactly, did she ever see in this guy? Maybe she was taken by the accent or something, or his air of sophisticated cosmopolitanism. But whatever the reasons, she doesn't see him the same way anymore. She's changed—she wants something else and Jack definitely isn't it. He looks like he might want to argue with her and if that's the case then she'll argue until one of them is dead. But he doesn't. He just steps aside and lets her go back into the fray to look.

She goes searching for Hatter in the crowd but she doesn't see that familiar hat anywhere. She does, however, find Charlie, and he crushes her in a huge bear-hug that nearly crackles her ribs like chicken bones. They're relieved that the other is alive and she congratulates him on a battle well won. He recounts her with the tales of his epic fight with the bones of his comrades in arms and she listens, amused, because Charlie definitely knows how to tell a story; he's convinced that a bolt from his ballistae caused the Casino to collapse and she doesn't have the heart to tell him the truth.

Eventually she finds herself standing near the Looking Glass platform, surrounded by technicians in their white coats, with Jack and the Ten standing by her.

"Wonderland is in your debt, Alice," the now-King tells her. "I can't begin to tell you how grateful I am to you."

You could try sending some of your flunkies out to find Hatter for me, she thinks bitterly; but she doesn't say it and instead she smiles sweetly.

He pulls the ring case from his pocket and holds it out to her.

"Would you do me the honour, Alice?"

For a brief and horrifying moment she thinks he's about to ask her to marry him. He'd have to be twice as crazy as Charlie and less than one-tenth as smart to think that was a good idea. The shock and fear must register clearly on her face because he quickly explains.

"Would you do me the honour of re-starting the Looking Glass?"

That much she can do. Once the Stone of Wonderland is replaced in the machine, the surface of the Glass ripples softly, like water, and a low electrical hum fills the air as it roars to life. And then she sees it: a reflection in the rippling Glass, a familiar sight that makes her chest leap excitedly.

She turns around to see for herself if he's there or if it was her imagination, and there he is. "Hatter!"

He grins hugely when he sees her, bright eyes and adorable dimple and everything. Not caring who sees or what they think, she jumps off the platform and pushes through the throng of people; at the last second she thinks the better of _flinging_ herself into his arms because she's not sure if he's broken anything and instead she hugs him and nuzzles his neck. He wraps his arms around her shoulders and her waist and she feels him sigh, chest expanding and breath down the back of her coat and her dress.

"I was afraid I might've missed you," he says.

"What, you thought I'd go through the Looking Glass without seeing you again?" She asks. "Fat chance. You're not rid of me so easy."

He laughs gently and then kisses her forehead. The laugh is hollow—something's bothering him.

"What is it?"

"You're going back through the Looking Glass," he says perhaps a touch redundantly.

"Eventually, yeah," she says. "Why, d'you want me to stay?"

"Yes," he answers quickly, like he was anticipating the question. "I mean, no. I mean…"

He draws back and keeps her at arm's length, hands on her shoulders.

"What is it?"

"You don't belong here," he says. "This isn't your world."

"You think I should go home, then?"

"Yeah. You should, that's where you belong. But see, I don't _want_ you to. I want you to stay here. With me. It's selfish, but there you have it. See, Alice, the thing is…" he trails off and he looks away from her. His face is turning red and he's so unsure of himself, of his words, that her heart melts. He closes his eyes and says finally, "I think I'm in love with you."

And there it is, the words almost tangible and hanging in the air between them; the bustle in the Glass chamber has stopped as people—Oysters and Suits and Casino employees alike—watch the show unfolding before them.

"I know it's kind of absurd. I've known you, what, four days? But I think I love you and I don't want you to go. I know it's selfish, and this is Wonderland and you don't belong here and you're better off at home and this place is still gonna be dangerous—probably even _more_ dangerous now than it was—"

She presses two fingers to his lips to silence him because he's babbling.

She's said the words before to other people, but very rarely. She guards the word 'love' and only says it when she knows without a doubt that she means it, and though she shares Hatter's apprehension—they've known each other for only a matter of days and normally she would scoff at someone who claims to be in love in less than a week—she doesn't feel her normal panic reaction or the urge to backpedal and run.

"I love you, too, Hatter." When she says the words, his eyes light up and he grins hugely under her fingers. "Now shut up and kiss me."

That's an order he follows quite willingly.


	4. Chapter Four

I'm so, _so_ sorry it took me forever to post this chapter! The older I get, the more my memory resembles a sieve. I'm hoping I'll get the next one up sooner. And then I'll get on to writing some smut for Hatter and Alice. There isn't any smut in this chapter but there's some mildly descriptive sexual content in the second half, though it takes up all of about two paragraphs and isn't by any stretch enough to raise the story's rating. But it _is_ there.

o…o

There's no reason to hang around the Looking Glass chamber as the rest of the people are sent back to where they came from—Jack is definitely efficient and things are going very smoothly the last Alice and Hatter see. But now that everything is over they just want to be alone together, so they slip away from the Glass chamber and head out towards the bridge. They're hand-in-hand and giddy like teenagers, a feeling neither of them has experienced in a very long time.

They intend to head to Hatter's tea house, which he tells her will be _quite_ private—and he emphasizes the word _'private'_ with a deliciously cheeky grin that makes a little shiver run up the back of her neck—even though he admits he doesn't know what kind of condition the place will be in after having been raided by March and his posse of Suits. But they won't have found his private rooms, he assures; those are only accessible through secret switches and locks.

They're barely a third of the way across the bridge when they're stopped.

"What ho, Harbinger! And Lady JustAlice of Legend!"

Both of them wince and glance sideways at each other with identical 'oh-crud-why-now' expressions. Charlie is a dear man, and they owe him for keeping both of them safe, but they just want to slip away and fall into bed.

"Charlie," Hatter greets him.

The old knight stands tall and gives him a salute, armour clunking and chainmail rattling. "I shan't keep you—his Majesty King Jack has prevailed upon me to remain in the Glass chamber and maintain order. But I feel I must say this." He fixes Hatter with a firm look, his chin out and his white eyebrows cockeyed; Hatter leans back slightly. "You may be a hero of Wonderland, but you must still be a gentleman. JustAlice has entrusted you with her heart—if you don't take good care of her, I shall not be responsible for my actions!"

Alice curls her index finger and bites down on it to keep from laughing too hard, and she inches behind Hatter and presses her forehead against the back of his shoulder. It's sweet that he cares so much but she knows who _her_ money would be on in a fight between Hatter and Charlie.

"No worries, Charlie," he says. "Alice could kick my butt herself."

"'Tis a matter of principle, my young friend."

And with that he claps Hatter on the shoulder; Hatter grunts softly at the contact. His shoulder must be sore. Then he turns and purposefully marches back into the Looking Glass chamber, armour clanking the whole way.

She's still giggling as they make their way across the bridge and to the narrow city walk-ledges, and then the laughter dies in her throat. She hated this the first time and she hates it now.

"You think you'll be okay?" He asks gently. He reaches over to brush a lock of hair away from her face and tucks it behind her ear.

"Yes—no—I don't know." She glances over the edge and immediately she wishes she hadn't—the city's water canals are a distant shiny ribbon hundreds and hundreds of feet below them. Her heart thuds in her throat and there's a roar of blood rushing in her ears.

"Hey." He puts his hand on her cheek and turns her head away from the drop. "Don't look down, okay? Just concentrate on me, yeah?"

She swallows—her throat is dry—and nods dumbly. He offers her his hand and she takes it and holds onto it for dear life as he leads her along the ledges expertly and confidently with the ease of many years of practice. He walks backwards, keeping eye contact with her and occasionally looking back over his shoulder to make sure he's not about to walk them right off the edge of the city.

Eventually she recognizes their surroundings and recognizes the red English telephone booth at the head of the bridge that leads across to the tea house. The first time she saw the place it was bustling and full of people but now it's deserted; the marquee out front is dark, the door is gaping open and hanging by one hinge where it's obviously been wrenched or kicked open, and all but two windows have been broken out.

Hatter stops on the bridge and looks at the wreckage—his face falls and his eyes go wide for half a second. She gives his hand a little squeeze and he looks over at her, then back at his ruined shop.

'_My shop's been ransacked—I'm _homeless,' she remembers he told her when he discovered his shop had been savaged. Then he had other things on his mind—like not being killed—so he hadn't looked or sounded half as heartbroken as he looks now, when he's starting to take in the full spectrum of the damage done. This shop is his _home_ and his livelihood and it's been ransacked, completely torn apart.

Inside is just as bad. The tables are upturned, chairs strewn about; the ground is scorched; the chalkboard is broken in pieces on the floor; the stock of tea is gone, stolen, and that which hasn't been stolen is on the floor in broken bottles, spilled.

In the back, Hatter's office is a huge mess. His desk has been searched, the drawers all pulled out and his papers strewn all over the floor; the desk itself is upside-down and someone has obviously looked through it for secret compartments. His white furniture has been trampled on, covered in footprints, the cushions ripped. His chair is upended. His glass wardrobe is broken, too, the precious coats and hats and clothes that Alice knows he must have always been proud of are strewn all over. Some of those have probably been stolen, too. His grass carpet is trampled flat and uprooted from having all those people tread on it. It's not just the Suits—the other city-dwellers would have figured out that Hatter wasn't in his shop and they've looted it for Oyster Tea, as well as anything else of value they fancied taking.

There's a pang in her chest as she looks at him taking everything in, all the wreckage and devastation. He's not shocked because he'll have known this was what awaited him, but that doesn't soften the blow at all.

"I'm sorry," she says. It's all she can think of to say.

He gives his head a hard shake, like a dog, and puts on a smile like a mask.

"S'all right."

"Hatter…"

"It's fine, really. It's bad, but… in the end they're just things. Things can be fixed, replaced. People can't."

To emphasize this point, he pulls her in close and kisses her swiftly but she knows she's just trying to convince her, convince _both_ of them, that he isn't upset.

They start clearing things out of the way—they right the soft chairs in his office and pick up his desk and put the drawers back where they're supposed to be. He tells her not to bother with the stacks of papers, that they're useless to him now—it's all requisitions for Tea that is no longer legal, inventory slips, price lists, business reports. There's no business anymore, he says, so there's no point in bothering to sort through the papers.

Helping Hatter clean up the ruins of his tea shop takes priority over anything else she or either of them wants to do. They don't talk much while they're doing it and try not to bump into one another as they finish the cleaning and put his shop back into some kind of order, or at least make it liveable. It takes hours but at least this way Alice feels like she's doing something to help him—if there's one thing she hates more than anything in the world, it's feeling helpless or useless. When they're finished, they each step back to survey the work with appreciative nods. Everything that's broken or destroyed has been thrown away and everything that can be salvaged is set back where it belongs. By then it's late, and they're even more tired now than they were before.

He goes into the back of his office and flicks some hidden switch or other and a panel in the wall slides away; he peeks his head inside and sighs with relief.

"They didn't find it," he says. Before she can ask what he means, he's stepped through and beckons her to follow.

He was right—there _is_ a private room back here: his living space. It's compact, but a decent size for one man to live in. There's a big bed and a plush love-seat, a table and two chairs, and a small kitchen; a sliding mirror is partially open, revealing a full closet; there's a door in the back of the room near the bed that she thinks is probably to a bathroom. In contrast to the stark white outside in his office, there's colour everywhere in here—bright tones and soft patterns that shouldn't work together but do just because it's Hatter.

"You live back here?" She asks.

He nods. "Gotta keep a close eye on my tea-shop," he says, and there's a hint of bitterness in his voice. "Jack said he'd put us up in the city palace for the night if we wanted, but I don't think I could handle it."

"Neither do I." She steps into the little apartment behind him and the panel in the wall closes. She hugs his arm against her chest and laces her fingers through his. "Much rather be here with you."

Hatter smiles, a real smile this time and not a bitter mask. "I'm glad," he tells her.

He offers her his bed and she gratefully falls into it. Her whole body is sore and aches and it feels good to lay down on something that _isn't_ the hard ground. She barely manages to get her boots and coat off before she starts to drift off to sleep—the bed is warm and soft and comfortable and next to her she feels Hatter flop down into the plush bedding, too. His hat is gone, as are his boots and coat and tie. She's half-expected him to offer to take the sofa or something, like a gentleman, even though he's done some decidedly un-gentlemanly things with her not too long ago.

"I just want you to know," he murmurs sleepily.

"Hm?"

"Chivalry isn't dead. It's just been temporarily usurped by exhaustion."

Alice laughs and it feels good to laugh. It's the last thing she remembers as she falls into a dead sleep, and dreams of cool nights and warm blankets.

o…o

There aren't any windows in Hatter's back-room apartment, but even if there were it wouldn't make a difference. The light in the city, she's found, isn't a reliable gauge of the time of day—the city is so many towering levels high on all sides that it distorts natural light. Alice has no idea how long she's been asleep for, but she feels refreshed and the exhaustion that was gnawing at her so much since the collapse of the Casino is gone.

Sleeping on days worth of running around like a crazy person all over Wonderland has left her stiff, achy, sore. It's like she spent the night in a cement mixer. She stretches her arms and legs and arches her back; loosening up her stiff muscles hurts and feels good at the same time and she moans a little bit. She turns on her side and expects to see Hatter next to her, but the other side of the bed is empty and she sits up quickly, briefly worried before she remembers that they're not fleeing for their lives anymore.

She reclines back into the pillows and inhales deeply. The pillow Hatter was sleeping on still smells like him and she reaches over and hugs it. She dozes, slipping in and out of sleep as she daydreams. In lieu of having sex with him, she'd had a wonderfully graphic sexy dream. Not exactly the same thing, but still good.

In the dream they were sharing a bath, and he was rubbing her shoulders and her back with skilled hands; the touches went from innocent to brazen, running his hands over her breasts and teasing her nipples with his fingers, kissing her neck and biting her ears and even in her _dream_ his touch felt amazing. Just a dream, though—a really _nice_ dream, but in the end still only a dream.

It plays over and over in her head and she doesn't realize one hand has worked its way into her tights until her fingers make contact with the warm slick folds, and she sighs. This probably isn't the right time for this, she thinks. But she keeps going anyway, because now that she's not running for her life and facing certain death every five minutes, there's nothing to distract her from the fact that she hasn't actually had sex with Hatter yet and she _really_ wants to.

She slides two fingers into herself and starts circling her clit with her thumb. Her hips rock slowly in time with her fingers and she imagines Hatter is the one pleasuring her, talented hands and nimble fingers quick to bring her to climax. A groan rumbles up in her throat, her muscles clamp around her fingers, and her hips buck and roll as she rides out her orgasm.

When it subsides, she sighs lazily and pulls her fingers away and curls back up with Hatter's pillow—the edge is taken off but the sooner Hatter gets back the better.

A few minutes later, the wall panel slides away and in comes Hatter. He's changed clothes, now wearing greyish-blue trousers and a paisley shirt in various shades of purple that reminds Alice of her grandmother's circa-1972 sofa upholstery; the brown pork-pie has been replaced with a dark blue fedora with the ace of spades tucked into the velvet band. His hair is a little damp and his cheeks are pink from a shower or bath. He's made some attempt at shaving but he's probably done it two steps away from the blade because he still has that absurdly sexy stubble, but it suits him. She can't imagine what he'd look like clean-shaved. It doesn't work in her head.

In front of him he's carrying a tray with some food and teacups on it, and there's a bundle of what looks like clothing under one arm. When he sees her sit up, he smiles warmly.

"Morning," he purrs, kissing her temple. Then he seems to think the better of it and kisses her properly, morning breath be damned. He rests his forehead against hers and he's grinning that crooked grin with the one dimple. "Sleep well?"

Nod. "Like a rock."

"A very _pretty_ rock," he says, which is a line that might normally make her roll her eyes but Hatter gets away with it. "Here, I got some breakfast for you. Or lunch. Possibly dinner. Thought you might be hungry."

He sets the tray on the bed between them; the food looks odd but he's right, she's _starving,_ so she falls on the contents of it. She can only identify about a third of the food on the tray but she doesn't care because it smells all right and she's _really_ hungry. There's tea and toast, and some kind of eggs with a blue yolk, some funny-looking fruits, and some kind of meat that doesn't smell or taste familiar but she's too hungry to care. She tries to keep from devouring all the food and leaves half for Hatter, but he shakes his head.

"It's all right, I've already had something—if you're hungry, eat."

"You don't mind me eating in your bed? I'll get crumbs everywhere."

He shrugs. "Naw. Go ahead."

After a second cup of tea and almost all of the food on the breakfast tray, she feels pretty good.

"Thanks," she sighs. "Didn't realize how _hungry_ I was."

"Well, we've had nothing to eat in four days except for a little bread and cheese and some of Charlie's borogrove."

"Not really good fuel for running around Wonderland overthrowing the government and shit," she says. He laughs.

When she's done she tries to get up to take the tray over to the sink—by now it's a reflex, her mother's taught her to clean up after herself—but Hatter takes the tray from her and takes it himself.

"You're still my guest, you know—you'll find most Wonderlanders are more hospitable to guests than ol' Queenie was."

Alice giggles.

He's left the bundle of clothes on the bed and cautiously she reaches for it.

"Those are for you," he explains. "I thought you, um, might want a change of clothes after running all over Wonderland for days in those."

She wants to run and hug him and kiss him and thank him for everything he's doing for her.

"You're doing so much for me," she says.

He turns, eyebrows knit in confusion. "Is that a bad thing?" He asks. "Do I need a reason to help a pretty girl in a wrinkled, slept-in dress?"

She giggles. "No, of course not."

"Funny you should say that—this time I _have_ a reason."

"Oh?"

He sits back down on the bed and leans in close to her, kisses her cheek and the soft spot underneath her ear, and murmurs gently, "Because I love her."


	5. Chapter Five

I swear I didn't mean to go so long without updating. I've been working on the next chapter, but it's coming along quite slowly. I won't make any promises about when I'll be posting the next chapter, because I honestly don't know! I hope you'll forgive me. If it helps, I've got an idea to write a sequel to this story. It'll be baby!fic, which for me is absolutely bizarre, considering I can't stand children in real life. (A sequel would also the opportunity for me to use a rather in-depth Robert-and-Alice backstory that I had all planned out but that I couldn't fit into this chapter.)

I hope you enjoy the read. It's rather more serious than the previous chapters; it's also going to be the last chapter that will appear on the main page for updates. After this, the rating jumps to 'M'! Feedback is, as always, greatly appreciated.

o…o

Alice stands in the hot spray of the shower with her head down; briefly the water running off her body and hair runs murky, days worth of grime and scum and dirt of all kinds rinsing off. For a while she just stands there because the hot water feels good and she needs to relax a bit.

Before she got into the shower, Hatter jokingly asked if she wanted company and her knee-jerk reaction was to say _hell yes,_ but she was filthy and disgusting and an actual proper _shower_ was a priority over fucking him unconscious. She reminds herself that there'll be plenty of time for shower-sex later.

Shower-sex and lots of other things.

She doesn't want to use up all of his hot water so she finishes her shower quickly. The clothes Hatter got for her aren't really to her taste—brown velvet leggings so long they almost cover her feet and a short-sleeved pale pink dress that barely comes halfway down her thighs—but at least they fit, and they're dry and _clean_ so she's glad to have them.

Fed and clean and with a change of clothes she feels like a new woman and she sighs contentedly as she steps out of the bathroom. Hatter is fussily arranging the blankets and the pillows, trying to make his bed like someone who never ever makes his bed. He glances up at her as she walks into the room and goes back to fussing, then does a double-take and stares. She can't imagine _why_ he's staring because she isn't showing any more skin now than she was in her other clothes.

She smoothes her hands over the absurdly short dress. "Thanks for the clothes," she says. "Feels good to be out of the dirty ones."

He snaps back into reality. "Oh, yeah—no problem."

"How'd you get 'em, anyway?" She narrows her eyes at him suspiciously. "You didn't steal them or anything, did you?"

"Credit me with _some_ scruples," he huffed with feigned indignity. "You know me—I know people. I called in a few owed favours."

She crosses her arms and raises her eyebrows.

"Or it's entirely possible that all I had to do was say that the Alice-of-recent-legend was looking for a change of clothes and people were climbing all over themselves to give me their old things." He nods to an old-fashioned footlocker next to the open wall-panel. "Plenty of extra stuff in there. You'd be surprised how charitable people are being when it comes to the woman who saved the whole world."

"And naturally you handed me the tiniest dress, right?"

His grin is all angelic but thinly disguised cheek. "Can you blame me?"

She doesn't answer; instead she goes to sit on the trunk at the foot of Hatter's bed; the dress rides up her butt and she's silently very grateful for those thick leggings. "This is gonna sound a little weird," she begins, not knowing how to segue into this and deciding to just head right into it. It wasn't two hours ago that she was anxiously waiting for Hatter to come back so she could jump his bones, but Alice is nothing if not practical and she knows there are things they'll have to sort out before they can go any further. "What now?"

What she expects him to do is make some silly sexual joke, maybe make a lewd and completely welcome suggestion, or do _something_ to make her laugh and then grin one of those knee-jellying grins. What he _does_ is adopt a serious expression and sit down next to her.

"I know you can't stay here forever, Alice," he says. "You don't belong here—it's not your world."

"I belong in New York."

"But…" he stretches the word out, as if he's still thinking while he's saying it. She suspects she knows what he wants to say and sighs heavily, her head hanging.

She's not running for her life anymore and she's off the adrenaline high she's been on while running and fleeing and fighting this whole time, which was what she was all too willing to attribute her sudden and intense attraction to Hatter to before. She feels approximately normal again and she still feels the same way about him—she's stupid in love, head-over-heels, all of that stupid cliché stuff she's long since shoved into the realms of fairy tales and dime-store erotic fiction and romantic comedies and other things that were all fantasy and no reality. She's rolled her eyes for years at people who fall for things like that and here she is falling for it herself.

That she loves Hatter doesn't change the fact that he's Wonderland and she's New York and in order for them to be together one of them is going to have to uproot their whole life and replant themselves in an entirely new world. Alice knows she's as stubborn as a pig and Hatter is much the same way—he's stubborn in an entirely different way than she is. His stubbornness is a sneaky 'I-will-do-what-I-want-no-matter-what-you-say-but-I'll-find-another-way-to-go-about-it' kind of way; he's had to be fluid and change himself again and again over the years in order to stay alive, but she remembers what he said. Wonderland is his _home_ and he can't leave.

"Hey."

He tilts her head up with his fingers to meet his eyes. His eyes and smile are nervous, unsure; he's worried just like she is.

"So, I can't stay in Wonderland and you can't follow me back to my world."

He frowns for a second and then the frown melts into a slow smile, his mouth turning up at one corner and his eyes crinkling slightly.

"Who says?" He asks.

"Huh?"

"The way I see it is this," he starts, tucking a bit of wet hair behind her ear and then resting his palm on her cheek. His hand is warm. "Jack'll be a good King. I know that—I don't _like_ him, but the things I don't like about him are what'll make him good at what he does. He's going to pick Wonderland up and dust it off and do his damn best to turn it around and make it what it used to be—full of wonders."

"O—okay," Alice stutters. Is he trying to convince her to stay? Wonderland without its culture of Oysters and Tea and danger might be a nice place but it isn't where she wants to spend the rest of her life.

"He won't put up with the crap that's been going on in this place and there are enough people unhappy with it—not just in the Resistance, but all over—who'll help him. Wonderland's gonna undergo a big change. But, you know, I don't know that kind of Wonderland. The Wonderland I know how to live in, the place I've known my whole life, is the one that doesn't exist anymore. The stuff I do every day isn't needed anymore—it was useful for me before, but it'll have no place in the kind of world Jack's going to make."

She holds her breath because now he's going in an entirely different direction than she thought he would go.

"One way or another, I'm gonna have to pick up and start my life all over again. Start from scratch. If I'm gonna go through all that trouble, I might as well _really_ start over and follow you back to—to—where did you say you lived?"

"New York?"

"Right. That. New? Why's it new, did something happen to the old York?"

Alice has to laugh—it's a sort of wibbly laugh, but it's still a laugh—because she's never given any thought to how weird names prefaced with 'new' would sound to someone who never heard of it before. If he's going to leave Wonderland and transplant himself in the Empire State, he's going to need a very intensive crash-course in her world so he doesn't stand out as a total lunatic—

And then her thoughts grind to a halt and back up and go over that again, like a mental double-take. _Hatter wants to come back with her through the Looking Glass._ Hatter wants to leave Wonderland and stay with her. Just like that he's ready to abandon the only life and the only _world_ he's ever known and start over again completely in her world.

"You—_really?"_ She squeaks the words out at a piercingly high pitch that sounds like someone stepped on a cat.

"Haven't heard you make a sound like that yet," he says lightly, his thumb gently stroking her cheek. "Is it a good sound or a bad sound?"

"It's just—you're _sure?"_

He rolls his head back and she hears his neck crack, rolls his shoulders in a half-shrug. "I'm sure enough," he finally tells her. "Look, with every major life decision there's always going to be some chance, no matter how small, that you'll want to go back on it—that's life. But right now, I'm sure. More than once I thought I'd lost you, my troublesome Alice, and I couldn't do anything about it. I'll be damned if I let you disappear forever when there's something I _can_ do about it."

Her bottom lip trembles as she realizes he's serious, completely serious, and she trusts him, and she can't think of anything else to do but throw her arms around him and hug him. She launches herself at him with enough force that he has to steady himself with his hands and his hat is knocked right off his head.

She thinks she might cry but she doesn't; instead her breath comes shaky and erratic but her eyes stay dry and Hatter holds her and nuzzles her hair and murmurs unintelligibly, but gently and reassuringly, over her head.

"Okay?" He asks finally.

"Better than okay," she says.

He smiles and kisses her soundly. "Think you can stand Wonderland for a few days while I get things sorted?"

"Sorted?"

"Get my affairs in order, sell the shop, see about getting a new identity for your world—there's people here quite adept at forging the appropriate documents to make someone blend in and disappear on the other side of the Looking Glass. Well, there's sometimes a need for that kind of thing, inside the law and out," he explains quite candidly. "I think enough people still owe me enough favours that I can get the things I need."

Then he pauses.

"What _will_ I need, anyway?"

In order for him to start over in her world she knows he's going to need enormous amounts of paperwork—a birth certificate, driver's license, whatever the British equivalent of a Social Security card is because there's no way he can pretend to be American, a passport, possibly a visa. However happy she is she knows there's a lot of things that need to be done in order for him to blend in on the other side of the Looking Glass and she doesn't know how to go about getting it all done.

"Maybe we should talk to Jack—or to someone who's done this kind of work, sending people from Wonderland through the Looking Glass," she suggests, talking quick when she sees him flinch at the mention of Jack's name. She doesn't like him, either, but she's willing to ask him for help. If nothing else, he owes them.

"You're right. I suppose in the meantime you can teach me how to not stand out in this New York place."

She can't help but grin. "Among other things," she says slyly.

His knowing smirk tells her that he knows _exactly_ what she means by that and he pulls her into his lap; the dress rides up even more when she shifts to sit astride him and he rests his hands on her hips. There's all of a micron between their lips when the wall panel slides open and a squeaky little voice comes from the doorway.

"Boss?"

Hatter's head snaps back. "Dormy, whatever it is just sign it or cancel it or order fifteen more!"

Alice doesn't know whether she wants to laugh or scream that they've been interrupted again. She settles for neither and instead stares at the ceiling and silently curses the god she doesn't believe in for interrupting them.

He has to go and deal with the tea-junkies who are throwing rocks at the already broken-out windows, desperate to find another fix. He tells her to stay put as he goes to deal with them—they're dangerous, she suspects, and when he comes back he looks tussed and has a bloody nose and she realizes that what he _hasn't_ told her is that Wonderland will get far more dangerous before it gets better under Jack's rule. The whole world has to dry out and most of those people probably don't _want_ to; an entire population of people deprived of their drugs will be at best mad and at worst dangerously violent. The natural target for their ire is the tea-dealer who worked secretly for the Resistance and played a major role in destroying their precious supply.

They both have to leave to survive.

o…o

Alice had wanted to go with him when he went to talk to the Resistance about getting the appropriate papers that would let him start a life in New York—it makes her giddy when she thinks about it, that Hatter's coming back with her!—because she figured she might be _some_ help with regards to what, exactly, he'll need. If nothing else, she could keep a hand on his butt the whole way to the Great Library and back again.

But Hatter nonetheless has poignant memories of Dodo taking a shot at both of them, and he knows better than maybe anyone that Wonderland is a dangerous place—more dangerous now in the tumultuous shift between governments than it was before. So he's refused to let her come with him, afraid that the Alice-of-Recent-Legend might be among the targets for the more desperate among them.

She argues with him, but Hatter's just as good at arguing as she is—as any New Yorker, really, which is a point in his favour because he'll fit in quite nicely there—and remains unmoved and un-persuaded. So she changes tactics and gives him a big-sad-eyes look and kisses him sweetly, pressed up against his chest. He hums and purrs softly.

"Oh, you're good."

"It's working, is it?"

Instead of answering he grasps her hips and rolls his against her; she can feel the telltale bulge and electricity shoots up her spine. If nothing else she's having some effect on him but Hatter doesn't concede arguments easily.

"So I'm going with you." She doesn't pose it as a question so it doesn't leave room for an argument.

"Absolutely not."

She scowls at him but it melts almost immediately when he kisses her forehead and then her lips. She's becoming extremely soft for Hatter, she thinks; normally she's as stubborn as they come and wouldn't let herself be told she couldn't go somewhere like this. But she can't argue with him when he kisses her and runs his fingernails gently up her back, raising goosebumps through the thin fabric of her dress.

"I'll be back soon—everything'll be fine, yeah?"

"Of course it will."

"You've got access to my wonderful stash of highly illegal black-market books, I'm sure you can entertain yourself for a few hours while I'm gone."

"I can entertain myself in _other_ ways," she says, pulling the dress up a little and pressing herself against his thigh, baiting him intentionally. He grunts and for a second she wonders if he's going to put off his trip for a little while and they'd lock themselves back here for a few hours. They still haven't yet, and she knows he wants it just as bad as she does.

"Wicked thing, you," he hisses, then bites her ear. "I'll deal with _you_ when I get back."

"Is that a threat?" She asks, copying his signature light and flippant tone. "Because it's not a very effective one."

He grins and gives her one last kiss before he lets her go and flips his hat onto his head with a flick of the wrist and the ease of many years of practice. His expression goes serious as he heads for the sliding wall-panel that serves as the door to his apartment.

"This doesn't open from the outside unless someone knows where the switch is," he tells her, his voice low and dead-serious. "Except for me, you, and Dormy, no one knows—do _not_ let anyone in here. I don't care if they say they're King Jack and his whole royal entourage."

"Yes sir."

"I'm serious, Alice. You saw what happened earlier. _Don't_ let anyone come back here. I'll let myself in when I come back, all right? Promise me?"

"Okay—promise I won't open the door for anyone."

And with that he leaves her by herself in his apartment. She sinks into the soft plush sofa—now she kind of wishes she hadn't teased him because now she's wound _herself_ up. Rather than relieve the tension herself again, she decides to go through Hatter's stash of highly-illegal-black-market-books to kill time until he gets back.

Time slips away from her as she goes through the collection. Several of them she recognizes from her own world; there's the entire _Harry Potter_ series and a few Stephen King titles among the books that are clearly Wonderland. Some of the books aren't books at all but magazines and what look like university papers, including—for reasons she can't even _begin _to guess—a copy of the 'Unabomber Manifesto'.

She gets absorbed in reading and doesn't know how long she's been here. There are three clocks in Hatter's apartment, but none of them are running and all of them read different times. One is missing its minute-hand and another has a second hour-hand obviously taken from a different piece. She wonders why he has them—maybe just for decoration. Her father said there was no need for a watch in Wonderland and she can't remember having seen any running clocks anywhere, but Hatter is definitely the type to collect things no one needs or uses just for the novelty of having them.

Oh god.

Her father.

Her eyes go unfocused on the page in front of her, staring blankly at the words without really seeing them. Her memory takes her right back to the Casino floor where she saw him die. "I'm proud of you," he'd said. "You're a hero." She'd been so happy she found him again, so relieved that he remembered her and that Robert was back instead of the Carpenter—the Queen's pet scientist—and he hugged her and it was the first time she'd hugged her father in more than half a lifetime. And then it was all taken from her, just like that. Just as quickly as it had come. She cried then because she was losing him all over again—this time permanently, for good. He wasn't 'missing', he was really dead.

With everything that had been going on at the time—like the entire Casino collapsing around them—there were other things more pressing than crying and she'd had to leave. Leave him there. She didn't have time to _think_ or _feel_ at all as they ran for their lives and the fact that her father really _was_ dead hadn't sunk in.

Until now.

Robert Hamilton is dead.

"Daddy's gone."

She says it softly, almost a sigh. This is the first time she's had to stop and think about this since it happened, the first it's actually had the chance to really sink in. She waits and expects to feel the tears surge like a tidal wave, expects to feel her chest and her throat constrict in that uncomfortable way it does when she's trying to cry and trying _not_ to at the same time. But her chest doesn't get tight and her throat doesn't iron-fist constrict, her eyes don't burn, and the tears don't come.

Her father is dead and she saw him die, after years of searching he was _right there_ and she lost him. So close, but so far. She watched him die in front of her, bleed out and breathe his last—alive one minute and then dead the next.

Again she whispers to herself and says, "He's dead."

The sadness is there, the pain still biting, but the tears don't come. Instead saying the words are almost liberating, putting to rest the ghost that's followed her since she was a child.

Her father is dead and she can't change that, and in the past Alice has never been so nonchalantly accepting of things that 'can't be changed', but this time she knows there are alternatives that are much worse. She could never have found him at all, and been left her whole life wondering without answers, because the only thing she's hated more than him being missing is the fact that she didn't know _why. _Or he could never have woken up at all. He could have survived the Casino's collapse and then gone on to live the rest of his life here as the Carpenter, never remembering being Robert or the life he once had, or he could have died but died the Carpenter.

Things could have been so much worse. They could also be infinitely better, but she can't dwell forever in the past and on what-ifs. She's done that for too long. She has her answers, and given everything that's enough and it's time to move on.

When Hatter comes back she's laying on his bed with books scattered all around her, her hands behind her head, staring at the ceiling while she's deep in thought.

"Alice?" He leans over her directly into her field of vision and it startles her because she hasn't heard him come in. She sits up so fast she nearly brains herself and him. "Shit—careful!"

"You scared me."

"You okay? You looked a little out of it."

She nods. "Just… thinking."

"About what?"

She gives a shrug and rolls her neck. "Just about my dad."

He sits down next to her, looking suddenly worried. "Oh, spades, Alice, I'm so sorry—" he starts, his voice soft, obviously preparing to reassure her and ready for her to go all to pieces. She hushes him by pressing her fingers against his mouth.

"It's okay," she says. "I feel all right, really. It's just… it's over. It's been this huge mystery in my life for so long and now I have answers. It wasn't my happy ending, but happy endings are for kid's stories—and this isn't a kid's story."

He kisses her fingers and takes her hand gently, stroking little circles on her palm with the rough pad of his thumb.

"I'm still sorry," he said softly.

"What for? You didn't do anything."

"I know. But I worry. You sure you're all right?"

"Yeah. Really, I am. I expected to be a wreck when I thought about it, but I think… I think I'm over that. As weird as it sounds. I've spent too long crying for my dad, I don't think I've got any cry left."

He puts his hand on her cheek and she leans into it.

"I was just… remembering."

"Remembering?"

"Things about him. The little things, you know? The good things. I never think about those as much as I should. Always too caught up in thinking about the fact that he wasn't there."

"What d'you remember?"

She shrugs.

"Tell me?"

"He used to eat butter," she says, not sure why she's thought of that particular memory.

"_Butter?_ What?"

"I dunno what made me think of that. But he used to take butter out of the fridge and let it soften up on the counter. Then he'd eat it with a spoon."

Hatter made a sick face. "That's disgusting."

"Yeah, I know. My dad was the kind of guy who would just sort of casually eat a whole block of cheddar while standing at the fridge door to see what there was to eat. The last few years before he left—before he was taken—he was trying to eat better and went all crunchy-granola."

His eyebrows are a little raised and he looks amused at her familial anecdote. In truth, she is too, because it's been a long, long time since she's really thought about the small things like this.

"It used to drive my uncle Frank crazy, because my dad would eat like that and never gain weight or clog his arteries. Uncle Frank could add an inch to his waist nibbling a piece of lettuce."

He snorts and then laughs, just like she hoped he would.

"Remembering the little things makes me miss him a little less. And it's less painful now than it used to be. Now that I know the answers." She closes the book she'd been reading and puts it on the stack on top of the steamer trunk at the foot of the bed. "What about you?" She asks.

"What _about_ me?"

"You must've had a dad. Unless reproduction works differently in Wonderland than it does in the real world."

Again he laughs. "No, it works the same way."

"Do you remember him at all?"

"'Course I do. Was just me and him for a long time." He stops and thinks for a few seconds, turning his hat over and over again in his hands. "My mum… well, she tried. Life here's been rough for a long time and she turned to the Oyster tea. At first it was just a little Calm or a drop of Tranquillity. Sometimes some Relaxation to help her sleep. Lots of people who aren't junkies do things like that—makes it easier to live. But then she started trying more and more and, well… you know."

She nods knowingly and clutches his hand gently; he squeezes it back but it doesn't seem like the memory hurts him.

"Anyway, it was just me and Da."

"What was he like?"

"He knew everything," he says. "He remembered a time before the Queen, and he remembered books and I guess he read all of 'em because I remember whenever I asked him something he _always_ knew the answer. And it wasn't him just giving me a silly wrong answer, either."

She leans down on her side and holds herself up on her elbow and rests her cheek on her fist. He leans back on one arm and uses the other hand to gently toy with her hair. He shifts and she shifts and they lay down on the bed facing opposite directions, their heads side-by-side, staring at the ceiling. There's a broken, swirling pattern painted on the plain plaster, a little like Van Gogh's 'Starry Night'.

"He taught me how to do that, you know," he says, waving a hand at the pattern on the ceiling.

"He was a painter?" She frowns a little as they turn their heads to look at one another. "Why does that surprise me?"

"You thought my father was some silly, mad, tea-guzzling caricature?" His voice is mockingly offended. "I suppose it's warranted. He was. We all are, I think, in my family. Comes with the territory, like crooked smiles and funny hair."

She laughs softly and traces her fingers down the side of his face, fresh-shaved whiskers sharp on her fingers. He twitches ever so slightly, involuntarily.

"Do you miss him?"

He hasn't said what happened to his father, but somehow she knows that he met an untimely end. The odds are certainly in favour of it—it seems few people in Wonderland live out their natural lifespan.

Hatter shifts a little and says, "Every so often it'll hit me that there's no one I can go to anymore with a question. I don't miss him horribly every day, though. Guess I just don't think about it."

She sits up and hovers over him, her hair making a curtain around their faces as she makes frowning upside-down eye-contact. "Why not?" Her tone is curious, not accusatory.

"If I missed and cried for all the people in my life who've died, I wouldn't have time for anything else." He reaches up and tucks some of her hair out of the way and idly traces the curves of her ear with his fingertip. "Life's for the living, after all."


End file.
